Tong Taverners Are Looking For New Opposition – Do You Fit The Bill?
Following the demise of the Saturday League team the only team currently playing cricket in Tong village are Tong Taverners, a friendly social cricket team consisting of a somewhat aged but enthusiastic membership.
The Taverners usual opposition are a few “proper” cricket teams as well as teams made up from local companies. We are however well placed to accommodate touring teams as there is a Holiday Inn less than half a mile from the ground and the ground itself is situated behind the Greyhound pub in Tong Village.
20/20 matches are played on Tuesday evenings throughout the summer and weekend games can either be 20/20 or a longer format to suit requirements. To encourage a wide participation of players we usually ask each player to bowl 2 overs and when batting you retire on 25 but are able to come back in should the rest of your team be dismissed. We do not play LBW as a rule due to the lack of impartial umpires and the fact everyone hates being out this way!! These “laws” are not set in stone and are open for discussion.
We are looking for new teams to provide some opposition for the Taverners so if you are interested please contact either Richard Rhodes 07971666419 or Tony Heslop 07901925518 to discuss further, or email contact@tongcc.co.uk
From 'The Yorkshire Post'
Village oasis between the boundaries
Squeezed between two encroaching cities, Tong still captures the essence of rural cricket. Chris Berry reports.
The opening ball of our destined-to-be-majestic innings bounced off what had been a pristine white Mercedes. It had been parked by a member of the opposing team who obviously knew little about the hazards of the relatively tiny cricket ground of historic Tong village.
The direct hit was marked (as was the vehicle) by gasps from one side and roars from the other.
Seconds later, the gathering throng at tables and benches behind the Greyhound Inn dispersed mighty quickly as the ball hurtled towards them. Watching this, Stewart Duxbury, headmaster, all-rounder and soon-to-be part of the match's finest moment, said: "It's a nice little postage stamp of a ground – and it was even smaller at one time."
White boarding around three sides, and fields rising up beyond, along with a traditional wooden cricket pavilion, give the ground that quintessentially English pastoral feel. It's almost as if you were within a painting, except that the cricketing attire on display tended to be less than picturesque. Either some washing-machines had not coped over the weekend or the heatwave had forced a change from traditional flannels to an abbreviated kit of shorts and T-shirts.
Tong, in marked contrast to my earlier Have Bat Will Travel exploits, is not situated miles from anywhere. It's a cricket ball throw away from Bradford and a golf course length from Leeds, but it is firmly rural, and the string of horses and riders that amble leisurely into the village, along with a tractor trundling through, serve to emphasise just that. The village pre-dates even the Norman Conquest and was the seat of Tong Manor between the 13th and mid-20th centuries. The manor remained in the hands of the Tempest family, who resisted the expansion and industrialisation of the village for some 400 years before selling the hall and estate in 1941. That resistance of industry remains today.
"We're very much still a farming village even now," said David Darbyshire, captain and chief organiser of The Taverners, the team for whom I was turning out and who play friendlies throughout the season representing both Tong and their local hostelry. This is situated, as every good pub should be, to the corner of the ground.
"We still have three farms in the village, but we don't have any farmers playing in the team at present."
David lives opposite the ground in this community of just a few hundred that some of the villagers refer to as an oasis between the two burgeoning metropolises on either side. It still manages to put out a first and second team at weekends, as well as The Taverners during the week and on occasional Sundays. Stalwart, elder statesman and smiler of the side is Mick Spargo – affectionately nicknamed both Shaky and Silver Fox by his team-mates – who has lived here since 1981.
"I actually came here because of the cricket. I played here before I lived here, starting in 1976. We're a pub team more than a village team (hence the name) and the idea, when it was first formed in the mid-'60s, was to give everyone a game, no matter how good they were."
Richard Darbyshire, David's brother, pointed out that the cricket is nonetheless extremely competitive and that this season The Taverners have won every game bar one.
Openers Phil Anderson and Andrew Daisy start off in sprightly fashion but perish early, bringing international all-star batsman Eamonn Burke to the crease. Eamonn once played for Zimbabwe 'B' against Young Australia. He sets the tone for the rest of the innings and I join him following the fall of Jason, son of Mick.
Together the man who has played against Steve Waugh (Eamonn bowled a maiden over at him) and the man who was twice stumped in the same match by Ken Houghton (ex-Hull City midfielder) "because he gave me a second chance" put on a partnership that sets us up for another Taverners victory. It's yet another interesting batting strip. The ball scoots through as though it needs a periscope at one end, and flies up at the other – all quite reassuring. Eamonn retires at 30 and captain for the evening Mark Moorby (David was caught up in traffic at the time) joins me, although not for long. Inside two overs he's gone – 26 runs in 12 balls and I don't face one. Ten overs into my innings, I incur the wrath of the headteacher. "You've got to get on with it!" I wonder whether I should be doing lines and finally make what I feel is a highly creditable 28. Brothers Richard and David Darbyshire are apparently famed for their running between the wickets, but more by way of notoriety than excellence. They have allegedly contributed more to each other's dismissals than any bowler has ever done.
Tonight, Richard is on his own but, in honour of his brother missing out for the evening and no doubt wanting to keep up his average, he dutifully runs out two of his team including the Silver Fox who shows how much performing still means to him by drilling his bat into the pavilion steps as he returns. We finish on 163 and polish off the opposition – The Halifax (Bank) led by regular Tong player Tony Heslop – in customary style thanks to some redeeming bowling from Richard, a brilliant night of fielding from Jason Spargo and a sensational run out involving myself and the headteacher, sending back the man who must have been their leading batsman. Special commendation award must go to the Fax's white-vested Gary Wells (at least he was wearing something white) who belied his 25 years away from the game with some terrific shots.
Everyone adjourns to the Greyhound where landlord Paul Stafford lays on a spread that is every bit as sumptuous as our batting and David tells me of the Tong Pot. "It takes 11 pints and the losing side had to fill it at the end of each game. We stopped doing it when half the team wanted lager and the other half bitter. It didn't work after that."
The club's history goes back to Tong Manor Cricket Club, first recorded in a journal in 1871 and 135 years on the people of this village are still playing and smiling. None more so than the Taverners who all play their matches at home, as they confess to being hopeless travellers.
"We only play one away game every season. We go to the same ground and we still lose half the team before we get there." Looking at their lovely little ground and the surroundings, you can easily understand why they don't see the need to go anywhere else.
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